Thursday, August 6, 2009

Arriving in Coffman Cove

We made it!! We spent two nights and two days on the ferry without anyone getting really sea sick. We got to our new home Sunday night. We saw quite a few deer. Does and fawns - no bucks. We spent Monday and Tuesday unpacking and getting used to the new house. Yesterday we drove into Craig and bought our hunting and fishing tags. On the way we saw a whale not far from shore. It came up and down four times in less than 10 minutes. And today we spent all afternoon out driving and fishing. We came home with four pink salmon - all Stewart's (Caleb did help reel one of them in). We love our new place so far. I'll see how many pictures I can attach.
We stopped at the space needle in Seattle. We didn't go to the top, but we enjoyed the view from below.
The kids favorite spot on the big ferry was on the lowest deck watching the water splash from the motors.
But they liked the room too. They loved hanging out on the bunk beds.
To entertain themselves, they played pirates for a while...
... then we watched fish jump for a while...
...then we painted our toe nails. We also played board games and did a lot of wandering around the boat.
We had a few hours to waste in Ketchican. There were three cruise ships docked, so wandering in tourist shops was definitely out. So we took a drive and found ourselves in a beautiful forest with little trails all around a lake. We hiked around for a while and then settled in for lunch at a picnic table in a closed area. When we were almost done a ranger came to tell us we couldn't be there, but he ended up giving us a tour of the local plants. We learned which berry's to eat and which plant to avoid and what to do if we do run into it. He also shared tips on how to tell different kinds of salmon apart. It was great!
As we were getting ready to get off the second ferry they had us go get in our truck because we were first in line to get off. As we were loading the kids in their seats, this guy opened the big door in front of us at least 5 minutes before we were actually docked. It was a little scary, but mostly cool.
These big patches of wild daisies are all over on Prince of Whales. As we drove from the boat to Coffman Cove, we saw great views, lots of flowers, and a few little does.
This is a little clubhouse that the darlings built right outside our house. They even left it equipped with toys. They also left Caleb a book of the tides with explanations of when and where to fish with the proper tides underlined.
These huge purple flowers are next to our house. I made the kids stand in them to show their size.

Monday night we went beach combing. We found lots of fun shells and a few dead crabs. This beach is less than 100 yds from our house. It's visible from the driveway.
This is the whale we saw on Wednesday. It didn't come up very far, but we enjoyed watching it.
This is today's fishing trip. Stewart is holding his first Salmon. It's not huge because it's a pink salmon -not a king- but from what I hear they are better eating. They were really good but I've never had king salmon, so I can't say.
This is Caleb pulling in his salmon. I didn't catch my own yet, but I'm not quitting yet. I did hook a couple but they got away.

2 comments:

Alaskan Darlings said...

Those big flowers are the Fireweed. I loved them too. It was really nice to have flowers all around the house. It sounds like you are settling in well. Was the raft still in the house too?

Misty Dawn said...

Wow! In all my years in AK I have never seen such HUGE fireweed! I have to tell you though, this is the first year I have really noticed how beautiful they really are. In fact, there are some right in front of my new apt here in Chevak.

It looks so beautiful in SE. The kids look so happy, also! That is a really neat playhouse that the Darlings made! Way cool! Please tell everyone hello. I am so excited for you guys and look forward to more pics :)